Over the summer hardly a day went by without headlines of the financial disaster that had been created by over-spending in California – over regulating and over taxation didn’t help matters as it drove away a good part of the tax base. They had managed to work themselves into a [...]
At a time when the phrase “trillions of dollars” is casually tossed around, $224,702 is still a lot of money.
According to “www.recovery.gov,” the website set up to flack the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), that’s the sum federal agencies have sent to Connecticut for every job the stimulus package [...]
Last week’s election showed what can happen when elected officials blatantly oppose transparency. Voters in Greeley Evans School District 6 rejected a tax increase after a member of its school board not only publicly opposed transparency, but also testified against a school district transparency [...]
From an anonymous reader, and hilarious-
Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.
The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by [...]
While I was somewhat disappointed in Tuesday’s results, it was not totally unexpected. Running as an independent in Woodstock is more than a bit of an uphill battle but it was encouraging to see that a number of people have been paying attention, reading what has been written and listening [...]
Tools of the trade for old "Doc" John Leavitt:By Dave Richardson
Municipal elections are less than a week away, and though there are only a handful of seats being contested, the strain is starting to show.
With seats on the BOE and BOS essentially settled as there is only one candidate for each seat, most of the focus has [...]
Foreword:
Dowd Muska strikes a theme in this article that has been prevalent in Woodstock for many years. If you think that it’s different in our little town- think again.
Even more stunning is the recent rationale on the other side of this debate- after years of denial of the obvious and [...]
BIO:
Born and raised in Putnam, resident of Woodstock since 1975
· U.S. Army Veteran 1966-1969
· Graduate of the University of Connecticut – Chemical Engineer
· Rogers Corporation 1970 through retirement in 2004
Last positions held:
· 15 years as [...]
Bill and his wife Lois discovered the Quiet Corner 20 years ago and have lived in Woodstock for 5 years. In that time Bill has volunteered for:
Charles M. Super has lived in Woodstock since 1998. He is a professor of Human Development and Pediatrics at the University of Connecticut, where he also served for a decade as Dean of the School of Family Studies, and as the Director of the Division of Health and Human [...] 
Margaret Wholean served Woodstock as First Selectman from November 2005 through November 2007 and as Board of Finance Alternate from 2004 to 2005. About one year ago I commented in a letter to the editor on the extraordinary year end spending by the Woodstock BOE – nearly $300,000 in checks written on the last day of the fiscal year, a $700,000 increase in spending during May and June, a bump over the baseline [...]
Burning all the public-policy studies that document Connecticut’s affinity for Big Government would probably keep the 3.5 million denizens of the Nutmeg State toasty this winter.
Add another to the pile. The Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based think tank, has released the first-of-its kind attempt to “broadly identify those states most [...]
For the uninitiated, it might appear on the surface that Woodstock has its stuff together and that the respective parties represent core values of their constituencies; however, the lines have never been more blurred and the cracks in the façade are ever widening. The splits that exist within both parties [...]
Over the last several years I have been observing and commenting on the budgeting processes and spending as managed by the Woodstock Board of Finance. During that time I have uncovered, and made public, numerous irregularities that have at times raised serious questions about the budgetary process and validity of [...]
The brilliant Lawrence Lessig on Congress and the dependence on money:
Right now, special interests have more influence over our political system than regular folks because of our broken campaign finance laws. These special interests pump millions of dollars into congressional campaigns [...]
From an anonymous reader...
Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007.
The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately two thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes, a middle-aged [...]
The furor over Pratt & Whitney’s possible transfer of work done at the East Hartford-based Connecticut Airfoil Repair Operations and Cheshire Engine Center to facilities in Georgia, Japan, and Singapore offered a teachable moment to state policymakers.
The moment quickly passed. Pols preferred to stick with what they always do [...]
Is this the most incredible case of incompetent budgeting ever seen? – not just missing the budget, but if these kinds of expenditures were needed and not recognized YEAR AFTER YEAR until after the budget was approved, "incompetence" doesn’t even come close to describing this situation.
Equipment
2007 2008 2009
Budget [...]
Fair warning: This one will depress you.
Americans for Tax Reform has issued the 2009 edition of its annual "Cost of Government Day" report. The analysis is a tabulation of how long it takes the "average American worker" to "earn enough gross income to pay off his or her share of" [...]
After several years following Woodstock finances and the Woodstock Board of Finance through several budgeting cycles I have decided to run for a seat on the Board of Finance as an independent candidate.
While I have had some success in nudging spending back toward more reasonable levels by raising numerous questions [...]
When I was a kid I took over a small Courant paper route and built it into one of the largest in the state and won just about every carrier contest and prize offered- trips to DC, bikes, sports equipment, etc. This is back when the Courant was a real [...]
Rep. Joe Courtney
on
Health Care Reform
Thursday, August 6 at 6:30
Woodstock Academy Student Commons
Route 169 Woodstock [...]Spring may be when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love, but the American black bear waits until summer.
Males out lookin’ for love -- or at least, er, "temporary companionship" -- lead to quite a few bear sightings this time of year. Females willing to oblige -- [...]
Think it will be easy to break public-employee unions’ grip on Connecticut government? Listen to a recent tale from Windham.
The municipality has a problem. The budget for food services in its government schools has ballooned, causing a loss of $210,000 between 2006 and 2008.
"We can’t continue to do business" [...]
This report is a non-partisan effort to increase the public’s and policymaker’s understanding of the recently enacted American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the so called “stimulus bill,” as well as some of its fiscal and economic impacts in the State of Connecticut.
The report highlights economic [...]
This manual is designed to help local politicians, taxpayer activists, and concerned citizens to lower onerous property taxes by organizing to reduce local budgets, both for their towns and schools.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL MANUAL NOW! (PDF)
Although written in the early months of 2009 – a time [...]
Lying to parents to protect the empire- what a surprise! Conservative Election_News Quiet_Corner Woodstock
